Amsterdam

Our river ship arrived early morning in to port. As they described disembarkation was organised chaos made worse by the shitty weather and having to pass through another ship docked alongside to get off.

We had our final delicious spread of brekkie, said goodbye to everyone and headed off to our hotel. We dumped our bags there and headed in to town. Hardly anyone was about at that time but what struck us straight away were the number of pushbikes everywhere most of them really old ones. We found out later in the day that people have old bikes as they are cheap and less likely to get stolen. You would not believe how many are parked everywhere and how many people are out biking.  We saw one man with a little cart in front of the bike with four young kids packed in to it!

Amsterdam has a population of around 700,000 however at any one time there are as many tourists too. We were told that these residents identify from 170 countries - it is obviously multi cultural. There are also 600,000 pushbikes in the city - go figure!

Initially Amsterdam put on a shitty day for us but the sun came out in the avo. We took a canal boat ride round the city which gave us a good overview.





We did quite a bit of walking so stopped off for lunch and I couldn't resist the fondue YUM!



In the avo we headed in to the main city on the tram. It was very easy to use, quick and regular and stopped right outside our hotel. 

We decided to do an organised tour of the red light district and we are really glad we did.  We had an awesome guide...a gay retired teacher who was full of information about Amsterdam and the area as well as the architecture etc.  The red light district was really interesting...yes its a bit of an eye opener but you have to be impressed with how well organised it all is.  The hash cafes are all Govt controlled so there are strict guidelines etc they have to follow...yes we saw some bombed out people around the place and could readily smell the stuff, but it wasn't as bad as most people would imagine.  The sex area too is well controlled, very safe to be in, and quite tastefully done.  We were not allowed to take photos in these areas and it did feel weird walking past 'booth' after 'booth' with women of all shapes, sizes, ages, colours etc in their skimpy lingerie selling their wares....but it is so accepted as a part of life in Amsterdam that even churches, schools and christian youth hostels are amongst it all!!!